UK Elections: The Limits of Comparisons

The General Election for our friends across the pond has come and gone, and there is plenty to talk about. Just make sure to slow your roll on drawing sweeping parallels to the in-progress 2020 elections in the United States:

Immediately after the polls closed at 10pm, the exit poll, which pointed to a much larger than expected Conservative majority of 86, sent shock waves through both major parties.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, appeared pale and shocked when confronted with the figures on the BBC. Asked whether he and Corbyn would stand down if it proved accurate, he said: “We will see the results in the morning and decisions will be made then.”

The former mining constituency of Blyth Valley in Northumberland was an early Conservative gain, bearing out the exit poll’s prediction. It had been held by Labour since its creation and was No 116 on the Tory target list.

Scores of other long-held Labour seats, including Workington, Wrexham and Bishop Auckland, turned blue as the night went on, and by shortly after 5am the Conservatives had secured a majority.

The exit poll was updated as the night went on, and by 5am was projecting a slightly smaller Conservative majority of 74 with a 45% share of the vote, which would be the Tories’ highest since 1970.

Johnson gave his victory speech in central London in front of a slogan claiming that he would lead “the people’s government”.

He took a triumphalist tone on Brexit, saying the “miserable threats of a second referendum” were over and it was time for pro-EU campaigners to “put a sock in it”.

But the prime minister took a more humble tone towards those in Labour heartlands who voted for him and helped turn swaths of the north and Midlands blue.

“You may only have lent us your vote, you may not think of yourself as a natural Tory and you may intend to return to Labour next time round. If that is the case I am humbled that you have put your trust in me. I will never take your support for granted,” he said.

The carnage for the Labour party is apparent, and marks the end of Jeremy Corbyn, but is not confined to just them. Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson, who started the campaign leading a faction hoping to gain seats and complaining about not getting equal airtime with Corbyn and PM Johnson, lost her own along with her leadership post. With the Brexit result — if not the details — seemingly a settled matter now, the next big fight that has been simmering underneath will come to a head; the Scottish National Party gains 11 seats and now control 47 of their 59 parliament seats and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wasted no time demanding a second independence referendum. PM Johnson still has to string together some parliamentary victories with his new majority, which should be easier now, but with no voting wins of meaning in his short Premiership he still has to make the layup to get it to count.

All that to say, things that are different are not the same, so while there are some lessons the former rebels in America can learn from the Queen’s subjects across the sea, drawing hard conclusions based off a unique election in a different government system with generational issues on the ballot is foolish. After the bombast and questionable hairstyles, the comparisons of PM Johnson and President Trump are mostly shoe-horned into whatever preferences you brought with you to the comparison. The Tories, while carrying the moniker of “Conservative” in the UK meaning of the word, are not analogous to the Republican party in America with vast and meaningful differences. Nor is Labour a perfect match to Democrats. The parliamentary system is very different than our co-equal, bicameral, two-party dominated one, and that is before you get to our written Constitution, electoral college, federalism, and a legion of other things making America’s grand experiment in a free people self-governing unique. While there are a few similar issues both nations are dealing, the United States has not had a national crisis-type election on par with Brexit in decades, and certainly not one that goes to the very meaning of national sovereignty the way Brexit does.

Go about your business today learning what happened across the pond, but most of the stateside analysis declaring that it has strong meanings for American politics should be met with skepticism, a sigh, and a chuckle. After all, we have our own problems to deal with, have to wait another 10 months before getting respite from our own electoral circus, and we won’t have Jeremey Corbyn to kick around anymore as “at least we aren’t that” as a point of rebuttal.

Onward.

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Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his writing website Yonderandhome.com

126 Responses

There’s a great piece from Andrew Sullivan on Boris Johnson, pointing out that he’s nothing like Trump, despite the superficial difference. BoJo is smarter, more cunning and took his party left economically while resisting Labour’s trend toward identity politics and open borders.

Corbyn is, in fact, a lot more like Trump. Led a populist revolt within his own country, speaks in dog whistles for his own base, despise the press, rails against the international order that has brought peace and prosperity to billions and something of a cult.

But, as you say, the lessons are limited. Trump hasn’t snuggled up to terrorists the way Corbyn did. And his economic vision was far to the Left of anything we have in the US. So interesting but the relevance is kind of hard to tease out.Report

I don’t think Corbyn is gone yet. He has to come up with a replacement, and the most likely candidate for the job lost their seat. If a party leader doesn’t step down quickly, they tend to find reasons why they can’t step down “just yet.” Power is a hard thing to let go of.

One of the big risks is that if they lose the blue-collar workers, they might lose the main thing that anchored them toward the center. Without MP’s representing working class areas, they might drift into the weeds, mostly reflecting the views of ardent campus social justice warriors, Islamists, and revolutionary Marxists, becoming a relatively minor party, perhaps splitting the vote with Lib Dems, Greens, and others so that Conservatives keep winning seats with only a plurality of a riding’s votes.Report

Hot takes must be had!! The biggest reason it is not a comparative is that the GOP suffered losses in 2017, 2018, and 2019. But those are apparently verboten in hot take land because it requires admitting Trump is a dumpster fire and the Democrats might know what they are doing.Report

The ‘red wall’ has fallen. Brick by brick. Almost every bit of it. Seats held by Labour for decades have been seized by the Tories. To me, this is the most exciting thing in this extraordinary election. It feels almost revolutionary. Working people have smashed years and years of tradition and laid to waste the nauseating, paternalistic idea that they would vote for a donkey so long as it was wearing a red rosette.

The ‘red wall’ results are staggering. In Bolsover, held by Dennis Skinner since 1970, the Tories now have a 5,000+ majority. Former mining towns like Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield — Tony Blair’s old seat — fell to the Tories.

Caroline Flint lost Don Valley — a shame, given Flint was one of very few Labour MPs who sensed that the party’s betrayal of its working-class, Brexit-voting communities would cost it dear.

Blyth Valley has a Tory MP for the first time in its 69-year history. Dehenna Davison, a Sheffield-born, Hull-educated 25-year-old, is Bishop Auckland’s first Tory MP in its 134-year history. She has a majority of nearly 8,000.

And on it goes. Stockton South, Darlington, Wrexham. Seat after seat that Labour bigwigs presumed for decades would naturally vote Labour — because that’s what working-class people do, right? — have turned blue. Get this: former Welsh miners and the northern working classes trust an Eton-educated bumbling eccentric more than they do the Labour party.

That’s similar to West Virginia, the Rust Belt, and other dramatic shifts we’ve been having. There is such a thing as “too far left”.Report

It is easier for the right to move left on economics than it is for the left to move right on identity & cultureThis is a great evidence-led piece by @p_surridge outlining why Labour is in more trouble than it thinks #ge2019https://t.co/1GW7IsKZuI— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) December 6, 2019

Like I said, I’m unfamiliar with British politics, so I followed one of the links which asserts that Labour must win back the “social conservatives” who favor “traditional values”;

What are those “traditional values, I wonder? Ah, here it is:

“Asked whether they agreed that “Immigrants increase crime rates in Britain”, one in 10 of those on the economic left with socially liberal values agreed with the statement, while among those on the economic left with socially conservative values this was a little more than half. Meanwhile, more than half of the socially conservative group also agreed that “The will of the majority should always prevail, even over the rights of minorities”.

See, when a Democrat reaches for this vector we’ll get New Dealer Chip explaining how solidarity works… but as long as the vector is open, then any attempts for a non-Democrat to go there must be poisoned by Progressive Chip.

But, in an attempt at solidarity and to show good faith, I’ll acknowledge that Trump and the Republican party are in fact hindered by an unwillingness to embrace solidarity vs. a narrow counter-identitarianism. So, I understand why you might want to turn a contingent into a universal; and try to ward off fruitful advances from the other faction.

But, my observation remains the same… whoever gets there first will win the realignment. Now, whether its easier for the right to move left on economic issues or the left to move right on social issues… that’s still up for grabs.Report

Just to be clear, the social conservatives in the UK, at least until this year were primarily in the Labour Party. From one of the links in the links, etc.:

“But the economic ‘left’ are not predominantly ‘liberal’; its ‘not liberal’ constituency outnumber the ‘liberals’ by around 2 to 1. To be able to pursue progressive policies, the votes of all these groups are essential. There are too few voters currently in ‘liberal-left’ positions to rely solely on these votes, and so a willingness to listen to and attempt to understand the motivations of those on the ‘not-liberal’ left is critical.”Report

They’re motivated by what they percieve as their interests Chip. The longer this kind of misdiagnosis continues the less likely the Democratic party is going to, as Marchmaine says, win realignment, and the more the broad left will punch below its weight. There is a racial component to conservative identity politics but the dominant aspect is cultural.

A less woke, more live-and-let-live liberalism with a view towards incremental improvement of the safety net and a citizens first attitude about the border probably can win where it needs to in our system. But as long as the face is a party specifically not for middle and working class white people plus the self-evidently absurd crap from the twitterati about some women having penises or a perpetual need to meditate on the evils of ‘whiteness’..well left leaners will disalign, not show up, and some small number might switch sides.

But the rump will be waiting around for someone to come pick them up and hold power for a generation. The Republicans lucked into a taste of it with Trump, but so far their internal schisms prevent truly exploiting the discovery. A more capable politician like Boris Johnson will take the same forces and mercilessly spank the other side until they get their heads out of their collective asses, stop making self serving excuses, and adapt.Report

No one in either party exemplifies this, yet. That’s rather the point.

There’s also the real issue of funding for this sort of political movement; that’s the primary impediment.

Part of me wonders whether seeing Boris in the UK will make some US political financiers think that something like that might work over here… and I think that’s Marco Rubio’s gambit.

Personally, I don’t trust Rubio precisely because he’s bough/sold by his donors and I’d see him as the “Tea Party” of Republican reform… but that’s just a hunch on where I think he’s going.

The problem with re-alignment is that it always looks like a failed election strategy until it doesn’t. So anyone aiming for a realignment candidacy is the risky bet defying the smart money and consultants.

Biden isn’t a realignment candidate in this sense, at most he’d be transition or sign-post candidate if he wins.Report

It is possible to be non-racist *and* not woke. It is possible to pro-working class and redistributive in ways different than Democratic/Labor orthodoxy. It is possible to be citizen-first and not xenophobic.

Put that together into a Democratic cocktail and the Democratic party will surge… but it shouldn’t surprise you that a Republican/Conservative cocktail of the same concepts will still have a different flavor.

There’s also the fact that you’re hiding definitions which make it impossible for you to see the voting block you can’t see…

That is, if you define citizen-first (your term) *as* xenophobic, then of course you can’t imagine such a thing. If the only re-distributive projects are Democratic defined projects, then you’re defining out of scope any other re-distributive projects. Intersectional power/oppression narratives which drive woke interpretations of racism, are not the best nor the only approaches to questions of race and solidarity.

I wouldn’t blame you as a Democratic political operative to try to shape the narrative and frame the debate on your preferred terms… but if your questions aren’t rhetorical from a Democratic operative point of view, I hope you see a way forward for merely liberal Chip.Report

He’s not particularly woke. Visit his webpage and check out his stances on the issues!

And the original goalpost wasn’t that he had to be “working class without being redistributive”. It was, lemme copy and paste this, “It is possible to pro-working class and redistributive in ways different than Democratic/Labor orthodoxy”

As for being citizens first without being xenophobic, check out his stance on the border.

If I accused him of being a typical woke, neoliberal Clintonite open borders Democrat, how would you defend him?

On Medicare For All: “Through a Medicare for All system, we can ensure that all Americans receive the healthcare they deserve. Not only will this raise the quality of life for all Americans, but, by increasing access to preventive care, it will also bring overall healthcare costs down.”

On Taxes: “I would pass a value added tax that would generate $800 billion a year in new revenue, conservatively. And then I would be distributing all of that money back to the American people immediately in a way that would then make our people, families, communities, stronger, make our consumer economy stronger…”

On decriminalizing immigration: “I would be for criminalizing those who make a business of trafficking people in, or repeat offenders or those who enter after deportation proceedings or conviction of a crime. But individuals or families who cross the border should be treated as civil offenders.”

On LGBTQ: “Sexual orientation and gender identity should be protected classes under the law, receiving all the federal protections afforded under the Constitution and law.”

On guns: “”We need to license guns, implement universal background checks, and get assault weapons out of people’s hands. ”

What are you seeing in Yang that is in any way related to what Marchmaine and InMD were talking about with realignment and a new kind of liberalism?Report

So stuff like the UBI’s redistribution is something you kinda just ignored entirely? (Do you consider the UBI to be orthodox?)

You don’t see how treating crossing the border as a civil offense is different from being Open Borders?

As for being “woke”, here’s his take on Obama’s take on Wokism:

Obama says call-out culture is excessive, good people have flaws and the world is full of ambiguities. Also says that real change will take place through something other than being as judgmental as possible. He is right on all counts. https://t.co/ifKH9Onlef

The real chasm which has arisen is between a Conservative party that committed itself to fulfilling the will of the people, and two Left-wing parties which had devoted the past three-and-a-half years to subverting it.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones. It is a divide between those who worry about the way they are governed, how the nation will fare and how high immigration should be and those who hector them as backwards or bigoted for even noticing such things.

How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday.

Even after the Conservatives won in a near-landslide, the Leftist automatons that run the party are choosing to learn nothing.

They are not using this time for self-reflection or to work out how they approach this new division. Instead, they’re stuck on repeat – at increasing volume.

As he says, the left over there is fully confident that they’re right because everyone they haven’t blocked on Twitter agrees with them.

We’re seeing similar effects over here. Another contrast is that the Republicans in Congress are far less “radical” than Trump. Compared to the Democrats, there’s not all that much difference between any two of them. Steady as she goes, try to get the border under control, don’t blow anything up.

Then moderates look at the impeachment craziness, the Green New Deal, every increasing levels of wokeness, Antifa, the Squad, the Che Guevera brigades, and all the other crazy people that keep making the news, and they have to wonder if even voting for Biden or someone like Hickenloooper would just give all the other folks free rein to smash whatever they want to smash. Voting for the Conservatives or the GOP becomes a vote that says “Please just keep these crazy people away from me, and leave me alone in peace.”

If that’s the case, then promising to do more of this radical thing, and go farther on that social transformation, and revolutionize everyone’s view of what was comfortable, and overturn this long accepted norm, and toss out that “bigoted” policy, and remake America along non-capitalist lines? Well, that becomes a losing message.Report

If Californian Progressives are depressed by the choice before them, we might find that the vote that went for Clinton 61.7% might only go for Biden with something like 58.2%. If New York Progressives look at Biden and then Trump and then Biden and get depressed, the 59.1% that went for Clinton might only turn into a 54% vote for Biden.

Add all that up, that’s a million votes all told. Maybe more!

But he still wins MI, WI, and PA. (Well, 2 out of 3 and that is all he needs.)

He’s not a crazy “woke” progressive. He’s crazy, sure, but he’s crazy in the “Crazy Uncle Joe” sense of the term and that’s vaguely comforting.Report

Another shift that will affect those states, and many others, is that in 2008 the left in Washington didn’t seem unhinged. To comfortably well-off moderates, the Democrats were the status quo of governance, with eight years of Obama’s sonorous voice and gravitas and Hillary as the continuance of it. The party seemed to have seriousness and discipline.

It’s long been said that all Democrats have to do to beat Trump in 2020 is not be crazy, but they can’t seem to do even that, which might certainly parallel the Labour party in the UK. The party got abandoned by the bedrock voters they left behind.Report

We’re currently debating the whole OK sign and whether it ought be interpreted as a dog whistle or not.

I gotta say, I’m less inclined to put money on “not being crazy” than I was yesterday.

But Biden can signal “status quo run-of-the-mill” better than anybody else up there and he doesn’t need to inspire *THAT* many voters who weren’t inspired last time nor swing *THAT* many votes in those three states to pick them up… and he can easily afford to lose the most passionate of the progressives in the most passionate progressive cities and still win those states by a dang landslide.Report

But can he? Biden is no Dick Gephardt, Bill Bradley, Bill Richardson, Al Gore, or John Kerry. I think this will be his fourth run for the Presidency. In 2008 he came in behind both Dennis Kucinich and “uncommitted”. It seems that Biden has a knack for turning off Democrat supporters (such as perhaps blowing his top and fat shaming a random guy in Iowa). And that was before Ukraine and Hunter Biden getting sued for child support by a pole dancer.

Sure, if Democrats could run the ideal Joe Biden that they wish they had, he might do okay. But that’s probably not the Biden who will be coming to the party. They’ll probably get either face-palm Biden or head-desk Biden, which is why so many money-bags and big wigs are very worried about the weakness of him in particular and the field in general. His fundraising is very poor, which shows a lack of confidence and enthusiasm, and which might really limit his chances to put up a good fight in battleground states.

I think another key difference is that Obama could simply tell the far left to pipe down and they’d most often do what he said. Is there anyone who thinks the left is going to pay any attention to what Biden says as he launches into another rendition of “Let me tell it to ya straight…”? He doesn’t seem like the real leader of a movement or a party. He seems like a grandpa with really weird stories.Report

FL is a bigger percentage, but the people there voted to add felons that had finished their sentences to vote (potentially, 1.4M). The state government is trying to reduce the number that qualify and is tied up in court. If Bloomberg wants to help the party, dropping a spare billion dollars to cover fees and fines would make a lot of voters eligible there. FL plus any of AZ, MI, PA, or WI is enough.Report

Is there any evidence that Florida felons aren’t primarily trailer park Republicans who got busted for some indecent act with an alligator?

Kentucky’s new governor likewise signed an executive order restoring the right to vote to 140,000 felons. But before he left office, former Governor Matt Bevin issued 480 pardons, including child rapists and a murderer whose brother raised lots of money for Bevin’s failed re-election campaign. I think both are simply looking out for their peers, kind of like politicians in Great Britain, yet different.

Impeachment may have driven Trump’s minority approval numbers from around 10 to 11%, where it’s been for the duration of his Presidency, to 30 or 35%, based on December polls from Emerson, Marist, Rassmussen, and CNN. It’s of course unknown how much of that increase would translate into votes, since at some points GW Bush was over 40% in minority approval (go USA!) but 90% of African Americans were still going to pull the D lever.Report

The graph shows that on the question of “Would they like to see immigration increased?” There was hardly any daylight between Democrats and Republicans or blacks and whites during the span from 1992 to 2012, with popularity running from 5 to 15%. At times Republicans were slightly more pro-immigration than blacks.

Then, starting in 2012, White Democrat support for more immigration starting shooting up, hitting 56% in 2018. Black support didn’t budge until four years later, when Trump was elected, and it still increased by only half of what it did among white Democrats.

Now, this raises some obvious questions because if blacks and White Democrats didn’t disagree with Republicans on immigration from 1992 to 2010 or so, or in the case of blacks from 1992 to 2016, what changed?

Did blacks only now realize that they’d love to see their neighborhood taken over by Hispanics, or are they just echoing Democrats’ attacks on Trump’s immigration policies? Is the number who actually want more immigration about the same as it ever was, about 10%, with 22% just delivering a canned political line?

What if the 56% Democrat support strongly reflects the views of virtue signaling elites who will not be negatively effected by immigration because all they’ll get is cheaper maids and waiters?

And what if, when it comes down it in the voting booth, the real numbers who support increased immigration are really the same as from 1992 to 2012, about 10 to 15%, even among minorities?

Then you could have something similar to the UK election, where the left has relied too much on twitter and urban elite virtue signaling and ended up badly misreading how their rank and file working class base would vote, losing them to the only group on the ballot that’s still taking the same position that all the parties used to take because 90% of the public, across all demographics, agreed with it.

I’ll also note that while everyone was focused on impeachment, House Democrats just voted to give Trump a billion and a half for his border wall, and allowed him to continue diverting DoD funds to it.Report

I suggest that unlike Britain, America doesn’t have a Brexit type issue which propels a realignment.

Its common to hear American Republicans, like British Tories talk about how global trade policies have harmed working class people.

But there doesn’t seem to be much of a defining policy issue to for example, abrograte NAFTA or to actually do anything concrete about the current trade policies. And I mean the base GOP voters themselves- they don’t really want to levy tariffs or renegotiate trade treateies.

Lots of sentiment to seal the border to people yes, but no desire to seal it against goods.

Right now, the chief appeal of the Republican party is anti immigration fervor and aesthetic cultural issues i.e, white identity politics.

If you are a black or gay or Hispanic Democratic base voter, you are very pointedly not invited to their party and realignment is very consciously made impossible.Report

I’m not arguing it had only one? I’m arguing that there were at least two genres of complaints spread across two different groups of people and it manifested itself in two different ways? (In one case, it moved from Obama -> Trump, in the other, it moved from Obama -> Not Bothering To Vote.)

Which means that the tough part will be figuring out two ways to re-appeal to the groups.Report

Trump was just touting the trade agreements he just made this week, which should double US sales to China over the next two years, along with revamping our trade with Mexico. Democrats and the media apparently didn’t notice what was happening because they were too busy trying to spin impeachment.

And we’ll see if Trump can flip blacks and Hispanics, or make major inroads. They are already giving him near record support for a Republican, in part due to record low unemployment among both groups, and in part because he actually delivers for them on key issues instead of just pandering during campaign season. They surely recall that for Democrats, campaign season marks the quadrennial meeting of the committee to discuss the idea of forming a reparations exploratory panel.

Meanwhile the Democrat primary is coming down to a choice between old white people from the East Coast, old white people from New England, middle-aged white people from the central tundra, multimillionaire white people, and young gay white people. The Democrat debate stage is going to look like the crowd at a Neil Diamond concert.

The UK Labour party might be in similar straits, with none of the potential Corbyn replacements having a working class background (unless being a top NHS executive or policy wonk is “working class”). The only “minority” candidate isn’t exactly hard-scrabble. Her grandfather is Lord Byers, who led in the House of Lords for 19 years, while her Indian father is perhaps even more distinguished in politics and academia.

At some point the working class has to notice that the leadership of the Labour party has never associated with any actual laborers, and would happily replace them all with robots or whatever refugees show up in the back of a lorry.Report

I don’t want to dampen JB’s enthusiam for Mr. Yang nor his quest to abolish DST… but I’d say Yang is more of a Liberaltarian than an upper-left candidate. Might still be good for the Democratic party in other ways, but not what I’d point to as an exemplar of what we’re discussing above… since you asked.Report

I mean, the only parts of this list I totally dissent from is AWB and ‘gender identity’ (at least as currently defined by activists) as protected class. All the rest I either support or could be brought on board with depending on some, admittedly important, details (M4A and gun licsensing being the ones with the bigger devils).

Of course you’re also omitting the biggest part of his pitch, which I’d succinctly boil down to a futurist form of capitalism with things to like on historically opposing sides of the partisan divide, circa late 20th early 21st century. The conservative version will be more nationalist less futurist but I think the first party to master the core concept while dumping some of its more alienating baggage will be the one that wins, which is really all I’ve been saying.Report

Brother, we’re a long way from any sort of Distributist influenced policymaking… I’m hardly anointing Boris of doing anything more than winning an Election. He’s caught the Tiger, actually governing will test his mettle.

But I’m perplexed by this idea that there’s nothing afoot… I’m postulating that we’re lost in the wilds surrounded by lots of things we thought were political fringe events, but are now governing coalitions. If your anchor for “normalcy” is Germany or France, well… prepare for disappointment.

So the point (in my mind anyhow) isn’t that we’ve arrived anywhere… but that things are in motion.

I can empathize that the original quotation about left/right movement would be felt as a rebuke to true believers in the Left/Left paradigm (as well as the Right/Right, but JEB! is already a meme), but if I take your very own framing above, and flip it into the converse proposition you made to me:

Woke, Open Boarders Socialism.

…and ask whether this is a winning ticket if pressed to it’s fullest, I’m forced to conclude no.

So which of those do you want to start moving right on to win an election? And if the only one is Socialism, may God help us all.Report

Like Hillary, Biden is going to be a poor test case for anything because the personality (and potential scandals) outweigh whatever policies they might, ideally, represent. What did Hillary stand for, other than “I’m with her!” and something or other about glass ceilings and Trump is a Russian?

Biden isn’t good at articulating anything, much less a clear vision for what he wants America to be. Obama was good at articulating, even though what he articulated was extremely vague (yet uplifting!). Something about all joining hands and singing Kumbaya, and you can keep your doctor. He was certainly better at it than Romney, who was for all the vague things that Obama supported, but with binders full of women.

Trump, in contrast, is over-the-top and gives hours long speeches and rallies, which are highly entertaining. He has no qualms about letting people know what he thinks, and he talks without a filter. In that regard, he’s similar to Boris Johnson.

I think this gives them an advantage over normal politicians who give you the impression that they’re holding back and just telling you what you want to hear, having run every position past numerous focus groups and advertising experts. They’re all package and no substance, and people don’t get a real feel for their core beliefs, or what they’ll fight for, or if they’ll fight for anything at all.

Normally someone like Trump would have lots of trouble breaking into politics at the top levels because he’d be an unknown, whereas the usual politicians who’d been in DC for thirty years were knowns. People generally prefer to stick with something they know than take a gamble on a pig in a poke.

But Trump got so many early interviews (Hillary and the media figured exposure would doom him), and he spoke so long as so often, that by the time the election rolled around he was the most familiar of anyone. We all knew his real opinions on almost everything. This flew against the advice of conventional political handlers, who try to keep their candidates from going off message or committing a gaffe that will haunt them, by trying to get them to say as little as possible.

In contrast to Trump, what Hillary thinks, other than that she’s all for more money for Hillary, is still a mystery. Yet, despite it all, and despite everything she’s done since 2016 to make even Democrats repeatedly face-palm, polls indicate that if she entered the race she’d already be ahead of Biden, Warren, and Sanders.

Sanders is similar to Trump in that he lets people know what he thinks. But he’s also much more similar to Corbyn than Johnson, because what he thinks is that some kind of Che Guevera Marxism is a good thing, and the working class isn’t go to be up for any of that. He would be, like Corbyn, a few steps too far left, and he has attracted quite a share of bitter and open anti-Semites to his cause.

If he or Warren were the nominees, I would predict much the same pattern we saw in the UK, with huge numbers of life-long Democrats deciding that Trump was a safer bet than a woke anti-capitalist radical.

I’d like Biden to a perpetual back bencher, one who has occasionally been a minor cabinet secretary. He’s only still in it because he’s been around forever and there’s nobody else left who has much experience and wants the job of party leader.

Buttigieg isn’t even a back bencher, and both by absolute city population and population ranking would be equivalent to the district council leader of North West Leicestershire, who’s probably in the race because he made it to the quarter finals of Britain’s Got Talent with a funny routine involving a unicycle and three corgis, yet seems otherwise so ordinary.Report

The real short answer is that Biden – like Secretary Clinton – is a corporate supporting neoliberal centerist democrat who is as drunk on large dollar dark money donations as Mitch McConnell is. The reason he can’t break out – and certainly doesn’t motivate the left flank of the party – is his economics are straight Ronald Reagan – who used to be called a Republican. There is no left left on the Democratic Party, and while Warren, Sanders, and Mayor Pete might well drag it more left of center, none of them is truly bound to make the Democrats the actual party of working class Americans again.Report

I can’t speak to British politics, but what is noteworthy to me, is the marriage of anti-free market sentiment with white ethnic grievance within the American conservative base.

They don’t as yet hold power- the oligarchs still pick the policy- but its interesting to see how the attacks on the social welfare system are now explicitly targeted at those who are considered outside the white tribe.

“Left” and “Right” in American politics mean different things than they did only a few decades ago.Report

He dropped the idea after a few months when it didn’t gain any traction. After that, under Obama, we had the Bowles-Simpson plan of increasing the deductions and slashing benefits. Republicans blocked it, and I’m not sure they’ve done much of anything since.Report

Yes, in both cases cuts to those programs were agitated for by the GOP who then, when they started inching closer to their supposed goals, remembered that most of their voters loathe those goals and backed off. Trump was dramatically different in the 2015 lead up and 2016 campaign in that he expressly moved left on economics and assured voters he had no designs on cutting those programs.Report

I’m still wondering why cutting Social Security (which Democrats wanted to do and which Republicans stopped) is a right-wing thing. The proposal to privatize part of Social Security was based on the idea that seniors are getting screwed, and that their payments would have been much higher if part of the money had been in the stock market, similar to IRAs.

That comes down to what level of risk an investor is comfortable with, and what level of trust people have that the whole think isn’t an elaborate scam to enrich Wall Street buddies.Report

Simpson-Bowles called for about $460 billion in health care cuts. The president’s [ed. Obama] plan includes $400 billion in such cuts. Simpson-Bowles included $260 billion in cuts to other mandatory programs (not including the effects of switching to a different measure of inflation). President Obama’s proposal includes $200 billion in these cuts.

It’s honestly rather good news, if George of all people is disavowing austerity politics and saying not only is the GOP not the party of austerity but it was never the party of austerity then it’s probably a good sign that the window is shifting leftward.Report

Personally I think itll take a stronger and more consistent disavowal than that, and from credible people (the semi-recent Obama comments come to mind). Whatever the effort it needs to account for ongoing right wing nut-picking efforts in the noise machine.

However I don’t think the edge is as clearly favorable to the right in the US as it is in the UK, where conservatives had already made peace with things like NHS and the totally wild idea that sometimes taxes are necessary to run a functioning government.

I think getting the Republican party to abandon the stance that cutting taxes on the rich (and eliminating benefits of course) is always good at all times no matter the circumstances is just as difficult as getting the D’s to abandon wokeness, maybe moreso. The Democrats after all have in the past proven that they can walk away from woke-like ideologies (Clinton’s sister souljah moment for example). Conversely, the Republican establishment shows no sign of stopping with the zombie Reaganomics, including when they arguably won the last presidential election in part because they nominated someone either too dumb or too vain to hold to what has been the party line for nearly 40 years.Report

Yeah, that would be the direction 2016US to 2019UK. In 2016, Democrats lost seats in parts of the Upper Midwest that had gone for Democrats ever since the Great Depression. Yesterday, Labour lost seats in parts of the North and Midlands that had voted Labour since before the Great Depression.

The difference would be that the U.S. system has constant federal elections at different levels that allow a party to get a bounceback without necessarily trying to resolve the larger questions of identifying the party’s electoral targets. In theory, the Labour will be appointing a new leader to lay out a course for the party’s resurgence, but I think they will nominate a female Corbyn and resume internecine fighting for the next five years, maybe allowing Boris to win another election.Report

If Britain had the Netherlands’ electoral system, it would be requesting its 13th extension from the EU due to a breakdown btw/ the Jedi Council Party and the Church of the Militant Elvis Party to act as sixth and seventh junior coalition partners.

The comments on that Tweet are hilarious, clever variations on the theme of “Under a different set of rules, I would have won!”.

I think they’d should just connect the dots and realize that if someone could go back in time and make them lose the Battle of Britain and get Operation Sealion to succeed, Boris Johnson wouldn’t be Prime Minister, and they’d all speak German.Report

Campaign reporters, please ask Bernie when you get the chance about his apparent tolerance for the occasionally anti-Semitic indulgences of his surrogates and campaign staff. It’s important. https://t.co/16NZKlBLC3

He excitedly describes Johnson as a new sort of conservative, breathing new life into the conservative tradition of Disraeli and would “return conservatism to its roots, shorn of the sectarianism and libertarianism that have choked it. The return to the idea that stable communities and families were of equal value to individual liberty would allow us to provide help to those who needed it. ”

Wow, that sounds impressive! What sort of policy proposals would this new conservatism consist of?

According to Henry, it would consist of “Johnson’s promises of more spending for the National Health Service and massive public investment in infrastructure in the left-behind north..”

Hmm…more spending for socialized healthcare and massive government spending for infrastructure projects.

It is easier for the right to move left on economics than it is for the left to move right on identity & cultureThis is a great evidence-led piece by @p_surridge outlining why Labour is in more trouble than it thinks #ge2019 https://t.co/1GW7IsKZuI— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) December 6, 2019

At the moment the only parts of the party that has any fishing clue what they’re doing or what they want are the neocons (who’ want endless war and military spending) who’re generally despised and can’t accomplish anything except a holding action on military spending and the republitarians who want tax cuts no matter what. So, no, I wouldn’t expect that we can expect much of a leftward shift on economics from the GOP anytime soon. The elements who’d agitate for it are in disarray and have little connections to the party elite in DC while those who’d oppose it have no voter support but all the money and DC clout.Report

Given that they have a tight grip on most of our government and are an even money bet to win the 2020 elections, I think maybe they do know what they want, and and have a clear plan how to go about getting it.Report

I’m not so sure. I think they have a clear idea of what they hate and who they want to keep out of office but in terms of a positive agenda? There ain’t much there. The GOP has pretty much sleep walked on their defaults under Trump. A tax cut, conservative judges, waves of grift, graft and incompetence, typical modern conservative stuff. None of the stuff Boris is talking about has gotten much more than gestures from Trump et all.Report

If they have no positive agenda then all they will produce is a holding action. If that’s what’s on offer, slow improvement and advancement under Liberal administrations followed by acrimonious gridlock under Conservative administrations I’d say we should take that victory with both hands and hold tight while waiting for conservatives to pull their collective head out of their asses.

I know you’re old enough to remember when you could expect some semblance of sanity and ideas out of the right on various subjects. I’ve never seen it; just the carcass of it seething with grifters and fabulists trying to make money off of its adherents.Report

Beats the hell out of “You’re staying in those cages indefinitely.” But if you have some notion of how to make the GOP become sane I’m all ears. I have a sinking suspicion it’s gonna take the boomers shuffling on.Report

Heheh, George, double check your notes, you’re in the same article where you were disavowing the rights schemes for privatizing social security and also alleging they never sought to do such a thing ever.Report

Chip: Henry Olsen is an American conservative. Simulated Chip: I’m not seeing it, but maybe someone can point it out to me.

Just here to help.

If you’re looking to score points on Trump for *not* delivering on his Healthcare Promises then that’s fair game. The Democrats should campaign on things like that.

But, I don’t think I or anyone else has argued that Trump or the Republican party has cracked the code and is running a good program. The sole observation is that there are votes in the Vector for them that wants to have at them. Some people did in fact switch to Trump… maybe they will switch back… the Blue wall did in fact crack; and, seats in the UK that had voted Labour for 100 yrs did in fact switch.

But at this point you’re clearly being obtuse when Boris campaigns on increasing NHS funding, the entire thread is about the Right moving Left on economic issues and you cap it with an American Conservative talking about Johnson’s model as something to consider and possibly emulate… and then wonder why it hasn’t happened in toto yet as some sort of argument that it can’t or won’t happen.

So, to reiterate… the first team that (credibly) incorporates that vector into their platform pitch will win the realignment. Not saying Team Red has done it, or that Team Blue can’t. Maybe the original observation about it being easier for Team Red makes Team Blue nervous… then again, maybe it should.Report

Eh, I don’t buy the idea that it’s harder for team Blue to move “right” on identity politics. It depends on how you define right, center and left on identity politics. Under the milder definitions, thanks to right wing caricatures, Team Blue could simply point out they never were where the twitter left is on identity politics and that could suffice.Report

As far as I can tell it would involve looking at things that lefties say on Twitter and then publicly renouncing those things. Which is, of course, normally political malpractice.

But the most egregious social justice identarian nonsense is confined to universities or meaningless corporate diversity seminars. There isn’t a plank in the Democratic Party platform you can remove or wave around to address that stuff- it’s not stuff the Democratic Party is pushing.Report

The signature economic accomplishment of the Trump administration is tax cuts for billionaires. The signature accomplishment of Republican states has been to shrunk the social safety net with work requirements and refusing Medicaid expansion.

So this talk of a possible leftward move on economics seems absurd to me. The last new idea the Republicans had was in 1979 and that aren’t looking for new ones so long as they can win with the old ones.

Working class conservative economics won’t exist because the voting base has repeatedly said they don’t care if it exists.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.